


my heart aches, for things will never be the same

by Talvenhenki



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Angst, Brotherhood, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Tag to Season 3 Episode 8: Prisoners of War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-18 07:40:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28614498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Talvenhenki/pseuds/Talvenhenki
Summary: After being captured by Grimaud, Aramis finds himself bed-ridden. He and Porthos have a heart-to-heart after the four years they spent separated from one another.
Relationships: Aramis | René d'Herblay/Porthos du Vallon
Comments: 24
Kudos: 40





	my heart aches, for things will never be the same

**Author's Note:**

> I felt a fic coming, and this happened. I originally based this on conversations I had with Erdariel months (maybe over a year?) ago about how poorly s3e8 handled...pretty much anything tbh.
> 
> Go forth and enjoy, my children!

Aramis could not move his arms. His mind was muddy, having just woken up, but he could tell with alarming clarity that he could not move his arms. He had been hung from his wrists, imprisoned by Lucien Grimaud and his men, unable to call out for help, to alert friendly forces. Aramis had been hung by his wrists and imprisoned by the inability to do anything meaningful. Now, he was in another kind of prison, one where he was free, but unable to move.

Was this all that Aramis had become? A man imprisoned by his own body?

A towel was wiped over Aramis’ brow. Aramis sighed when he felt the towel’s coolness – he hadn’t even realised that he was burning up. Finally opening his eyes, Aramis saw Porthos leaning over him, brows furrowed in worry.

“You’re awake”, Porthos said. He kept his tone level almost pointedly, a tell-tale sign of Porthos having difficult feelings. It was odd, how, even after years of separation, Aramis could notice Porthos hiding something, not wanting to cause any more pain.

“Something is bothering you”, Aramis rasped out. Hearing his own voice, he was starting to reconsider his own words on being _fine_ , because he clearly was not. “What is it?”

“ _Bothering_ ”, Porthos scoffed, shaking his head. “You could have died, Aramis! Died! I could…I could have lost you. How could you ask me to _shoot_ you?”

Aramis closed his eyes again. He had clearly miscalculated Porthos’ anger, perhaps because Aramis had been away for four years and Porthos had had time to learn to hide his feelings even better than before. Aramis was, as Porthos had once put it, an old fool who forgot to take care of his friendships. What an idiot he truly was.

Sighing, Aramis looked at Porthos once more. “I hoped that it would rectify my past mistakes”, Aramis whispered, “that, by putting myself in the line of fire, I’d somehow be absolved.”

Grunting, Porthos stood up, and walked a few steps away from Aramis’ bed. That was new. The Porthos Aramis had learnt to know as a young man was a patient person whose feelings, no matter how bad or difficult, never manifested physically. If Porthos had to walk off the feelings, it either meant that Porthos had changed, or that Aramis had finally hurt him more than Porthos could handle.

Was it even a surprise, after four long years of war?

“‘Absolved’?” Porthos asked, turning around to face Aramis. His eyes were flaming with emotion, not quite anger, though. “You wanted me to shoot you because you felt like you needed a heroic death? You wanted to get shot because you wanted some godly forgiveness for what you did to _me_? You utter moron!”

_Oh._

Porthos was right; Aramis was an utter moron. He was, in fact, so stupid that he hadn’t understood the depth of Porthos’ hurt. Aramis had failed to notice that, despite their renewed friendship, Porthos was still deeply hurt and upset by Aramis’ time in the monastery.

“I didn’t want a heroic death”, Aramis breathed, “I thought that by negotiating for peace, I could somehow erase the four years I spent apart from you. I was mistaken.”

Porthos shook his head. Sitting back down on the chair, he groaned and combed his fingers through his hair.

“You can’t erase something like that, Aramis”, Porthos muttered, “you made the choice to leave all those years ago, and we all had to live with it. I had to learn to live without the way you spoke, the way you made me enjoy life. _I had to._ Otherwise, I would have despaired and lost my sense of duty.”

Looking up at Porthos, Aramis felt his throat constrict. He wished he could move his arms, to hold Porthos again, after all those years of separation. It was all Aramis doing, making Porthos suffer needlessly like that.

“I’m sorry”, Aramis whispered, “oh, Porthos, I am so sorry. You deserve better than what I gave you.”

Porthos chuckled darkly, his voice strained. “The thing is, I only ever wanted you. I only ever wanted to _be_ with you. But you left, because you’d made a promise to God and I had to live without you.”

Porthos looked heartbroken. He was older now, but Aramis still knew the lines on his face. Porthos was still the same man Aramis had befriended and loved – who Aramis still loved. And Aramis had made a mess of everything, by fathering the dauphin and by causing a minor royal crisis.

And now he couldn’t even hold his dear Porthos because his arms would not move.

“Come here?” Aramis asked softly. “I can’t give you back the years we’ve missed, but I’d like to be held by you once more.”

Porthos frowned. “Why aren’t you moving yourself?” he asked, confused. “Usually, you would have jumped off the bed to hold me by this point. Is there something I should know?”

Squeezing his eyes shut, Aramis shook his head. “I _can’t_ ”, he said, frustrated, “I can’t move. Grimaud hung me by my wrists at that deserted house and now my arms aren’t working! I think my shoulders may have been damaged by hanging like that for hours.”

Porthos sprung up, slipping the collar of Aramis’ shirt over his shoulder to see if there was any damage. “ _Shit_ ”, he mumbled, “I’ll go get Constance. She probably knows what to do.”

Before Aramis could stop him, Porthos was out of the door, calling for Constance. Aramis leaned back on the bed, waiting. He hated waiting. In retrospect, waiting was all he’d ever done in the monastery. Waiting to be able to take his vows, to become a real monk. Perhaps that had been a part of his willingness to return to the musketeers where he wouldn’t have to wait.

Before long, Porthos returned with Constance in tow. She wore a worried expression as she checked Aramis’ shoulders – they were badly bruised, she said. Porthos looked worried as well, and a bit apologetic which Aramis did not like, since Porthos had done nothing wrong.

“We should try to bring the bruising and swelling down”, Constance said, “I have a salve for that. Don’t go anywhere, you two!”

Aramis wanted to say that there was no way he would go anywhere but decided on an annoyed groan. For an intelligent woman, Constance sometimes managed to say truly dumb things.

“She’s worried, you know”, Porthos muttered, “when she heard that Athos pointed his gun at you, she almost had his head.”

“Oh.”

“And just so you know”, Porthos continued, “so am I. But I am also angry because you asked me to shoot you. You don’t get to ask something like that of me. We used to be _brothers_! What changed? Was it me or you?”

Aramis shook his head. Just as he was about to speak, Constance hurried back with a small jar of something that most likely was the salve she’d been speaking about. She opened it and an odd aroma filled the room.

“I got this from the late doctor Lemay”, Constance explained, “he’d got it from some merchants, but I don’t know for sure where it’s from, or what it’s made of. It works wonders on the boys…cadets, I mean. Do you want to try it?”

“Let’s do so”, Aramis said, “it can’t make me any worse.”

Constance nodded and began to apply the salve generously. The bruises were clearly worse than Aramis had been expecting since it took some time to cover the whole area. When Constance was sure that she’d covered everything, she nodded and wiped her hand on Aramis’ shirt.

“That should help”, Constance muttered, “for starters anyway. Are you hungry? You haven’t had food since, I don’t even know, yesterday? The day before? I could make something simple for you, if Porthos wants to stay here.”

Porthos nodded. “I do. We have things to discuss.”

“Then, discuss”, Constance said, and left the room. She had a small, knowing smile on her face – she’d once told Aramis that Porthos had had the habit of telling her about his earlier days with Aramis during the war.

For a moment, neither Porthos nor Aramis spoke. The air was heavy with emotion, with the things they had not said and had regretted. Porthos sat down on the chair once more, dark eyes looking at Aramis.

“It wasn’t because of you”, Aramis said eventually, “at least, I think it wasn’t. It was…I felt useless, having lived four years in a monastery. When we saw Éparcy, I felt like I had to do something. I had abandoned you at the eve of war, hiding behind God, and…I still feel like I betrayed you back then. I could have fought alongside you, but instead, I decided to try to become a man of cloth.”

Porthos shook his head. “You weren’t useless at the monastery. You looked after those children who were orphaned by the war. I always thought it could be your calling, were we to live in a gentler world. I don’t think those children could have grown up quite so happy if you hadn’t been there for them. No, I want to understand why you thought that shooting you was a good idea.”

Oh, how Aramis wanted to brush his fingers against Porthos’ arm to soothe him. “I wanted to stop Grimaud”, he whispered, “after what he did to Athos…what he did to _you_. I could have lost you because of him. Then we saw Éparcy and learnt of the horrors that spawned him. He has to be stopped, Porthos. One of us could die if he isn’t stopped.”

Porthos moved to sit on the edge of Aramis’ bed. He cupped Aramis’ cheek, running his thumb over the cheekbone. “I don’t want it to be you. I just got you back; I don’t think I could handle losing you again. I missed you so much.”

“God, I wish I could hold you right now”, Aramis breathed. He wanted to hold Porthos, to ask for forgiveness, and to feel that, at least for a moment, things were back to normal and Porthos didn’t hate him for what he’d done. “Lie down with me, just for a bit?”

After a few moments, Porthos obliged. He gently moved Aramis closer to the wall so that he would fit on the bed as well. Placing one arm over Aramis’ chest, he allowed Aramis to snuggle his head closer so that they could touch foreheads.

“I missed you”, Porthos said quietly, “I missed you so much. Please never ask me to shoot you again. I could never do it.”

“I know”, Aramis whispered, “I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> Toss a comment to your writer! I might be thinking of a part 2 for this ;)
> 
> About the written form of Éparcy: since this is a French name, the e should be written with an _accent aigu_ (´) because otherwise the first sound of the word would be /ə/ and not /e/ like it should be. This was not the written form in the original BBC subtitles, but it's how the name should be written. Take it from me, I've studied French phonetics and especially the pronunciation of the letter e because as a Finn, I just can't do it :"D


End file.
